Still Life
by livingforfomas
Summary: Harry isn't much for art, especially if that art involves Pansy Parkinson and her bloody gallery. But, perhaps he could be if that art involves Draco Malfoy.


_Still Life_

"Remind me again why I'm going to this art viewing?" Harry huffed indignantly as Hermione softened the wrinkles collecting at his collar and straitened his tie. "Better yet, remind me why _you're _attending Parkinson's show?"

Realizing too late his mistake, Harry choked on the none-too-gentle knot at his neck.

"_I'm _attending because we're work partners and she so graciously extended an invitation my way. _You're _going because you need to learn a thing or two about being civilized and Ron's on vacation with Molly."

"You could have just said that first. No need to accuse me of savagery," the wizard retorted after regaining his breath.

"You _are_ a savage. The way you _still _treat Malfoy is abysmal. Even Ronald's managed to lighten up a bit. And he does it without being a smart arse child."

Harry only barely refrained from explaining the dry spell Ron was promised for misbehavior in the workplace. He thanked his still recovering inhale for the momentary restraint.

"How long do we have to stay?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. Tonight would be a long night indeed.

* * *

The space was surprisingly congested upon arrival. Harry always assumed these events would consist of twenty or so stuffed shirts, cheap wine, and horrid conversation. A minute of observation and a mouthful of a poor impression of alcohol made almost each assumption a reality.

"Hermione!" Pansy nearly shrieked and parted the overwhelming crowd separating them.

"Be_have_," she hissed and elbowed Harry into choking for the second time this evening. "Pansy!"

The witch, in her own right, performed well. Of course Harry knew differently. The bruise forming on his third rib probably convinced him otherwise.

"I'm so glad you came!" Pansy beamed. "Can you believe all of these people? And here I was expecting twenty stuffed shirts getting wasted on the wine!"

"That makes two of us," Harry agreed too quickly and was rewarded with a matching bruise to his arm.

_Worth it. _

"Don't worry, Hermione," their host ensured. "Not even Kingsley's lackey will ruin my gallery."

The witch gave as good as she got, and for whatever reason, Harry admired that, proposed a wordless toast and drown in tartness.

"You have to meet some of the artists! Look around, Harry. I don't want to bore you with art talk."

Hermione eyed him once more before disappearing and leaving the former savior alone and in want of another glass.

Meandering around nameless and unrecognizable faces, Harry stumbled—more so from alcohol impairment—into the framed sculpture room.

Statues of recognizable war figures were painted and posed while holding their own frames. At the appropriate angle, the statues appeared to look like any other self-portrait. Well, ignoring the splotches of paint decorating their bare upper bodies.

It was interesting, and slightly disturbing as Harry recognized the faces well. And with his newly developed paranoia brought on by his seventh glass of wine, Harry nearly hexed the sculpture of Draco Malfoy seeming to appear from nowhere behind him.

_I should work on my reactions before I kill someone. _

Cautiously, as if the art would come to life, Harry examined the bane of his existence with the utmost care and precision.

Malfoy's chest was bare, and painted from the line of his pants to his now colored, normally platinum blond hair. The statue was set in a stance unlike Harry was accustomed to seeing from Malfoy. The man almost looked defeated in his hunch. His eyes were wide and terrified and hardly held the onyx tone they would cast so brilliantly in defiance against Harry.

Not that Harry admired Malfoy's eyes. Or his strong jaw or confident stride and perfect poise. Certainly not.

Searching left and right to assess for onlookers, the wizard tentatively reached forwards through the frame Malfoy held and touched the hollow at the base of the sculptures throat.

Honestly, if Harry hadn't known better, he would have sworn this was the real Malfoy covered in paint. To convince himself otherwise, and for the sole purpose of gaining more evidence, Harry trailed his fingers lower over a perfectly chiseled chest and abdomen, stopping only when his hand met the frame's edge.

"A shame Malfoy can't be this fit in the flesh. Perhaps we'd get along better," he muttered with a quiet chuckle and continued his exploration. Slowly, he made work of examining every exposed bit of carved skin, recoiling nervously as an odd bump, akin to a scar, was felt beneath the paint between the sculpture's ribcage. Malfoy wouldn't have revealed their _incident_ to anyone, would he? No, it must have been a chip in the paint. Nothing more.

Time moved without Harry offering his permission. Hermione and Pansy eventually found him fortunately only appraising the same statue with his eyes rather than his hands.

"Caught you ogling, Potter!" Pansy sang with drink obviously marring the control she had over her volume. "Aren't they lovely?"

"What are your asking prices?" Harry pondered aloud, his eyes never leaving Malfoy's stoic ones. "These are so lifelike."

"None of the still frames are for sale, Potter. I thought I made that clear in the invitations."

The Chosen One, of course, hadn't read the invitation. Hadn't a say in the matter at all.

"Surely you don't mean to stash them all in your living room to keep yourself from looking so lonely."

"Harry!" Hermione gasped and raised a warning brow.

Pansy giggled and smiled. "They're real people. That's the real Draco Malfoy and I'm hardly in the business of slave trade. That's still illegal, I believe."

Harry's eyes threatened to jump from his skull as he cast a mortified glance back at the statue he'd been molesting. Suddenly, every statue began to melt into life as each subject stretched and readjusted their stiffened joints and tense muscles.

The crowd erupted in applause and cheers for the human art. A room full of painted witches and wizards bowed at the praise. All but one, at least, as Draco Malfoy left his station abruptly with a blush staining his cheeks not made of paint.

Harry faded amongst the crowd and followed the man in desperate need of escape. His trail ended at the men's toilets and he reigned in a Gryffindor's courage to pursue further.

The sight Harry met behind the door did nothing for his anxiety. In fact, his heart fluttered violently in his chest as the blond splashed his face and hair clean- droplets of rebellious water smudging the paint still decorating his upper half.

"Malfoy," he breathed unsteadily.

"P-Potter," Malfoy sputtered in return and ran a shaking hand through his wet locks, both removing and spreading the paint in his hand and hair. "What the piss were you doing out there? Were you going to get to the other statues eventually? We were petrified, Potter! Not fucking dead! What were you thinking?"

"I didn't know you were real, Malfoy! I wouldn't have touched you if I knew you were _you._"

"It would have been me even if I wasn't me!" Anyone overhearing this conversation would think the men bonkers, and in light of that recent development, Harry locked and silenced the room, wishing luck to anyone who had had a bit too much to drink. They'd have to find relief elsewhere. "Doesn't change the fact you would have probed a statue of me."

"I _may_ have prodded. Probed is a pretty serious accusation."

_Teasing isn't getting you out of this one, old chap. _

"Potter, you have thirty seconds to convince me not to hex you into a more permanent figurine for your actions."

"What do you want me to-."

"The clock's ticking," Malfoy interrupted seriously. The face on the sculpture all but gone and the confidence Harry remembered seeping through the man before him. Without any justification immediately rising to the occasion, Harry thought, _in for a knut, in for a sickle, _and strode towards Malfoy.

A determined set of hands gripped the fellow Auror's shoulders and backed him into the nearest wall as his mouth stifled the protest threatening to spill over Malfoy's lips. The man tasted of paint and stale air, but Harry didn't mind.

He tasted like _life. _

And Harry laughed despite himself. The situation really was ridiculous. Absurd.

The stuff of Muggle sitcoms.

To remedy his obvious hysteria, he brought their lips back together, still nursing a stunned work of art into action. A sharp nip to his counter's lower lip brought Malfoy back to the present and he began to retaliate- not so much participating as he was competing.

"What are we," Malfoy tried, "doing?"

Harry shook his head and fisted a hand in the former Slytherin's painted locks. "I don't know."

Apparently, this was the correct answer as Malfoy's hands came to wrap around Harry's waist and grip his arse. The former Gryffindor was pulled flush against the chest he'd been tracing all evening and distantly made sense of the scar against the statue.

Their growing arousal rutted painfully between them in need of release and Harry could do little more than go along for whatever ride they were trapped on.

"Fuck, Potter. You're lucky that spell paralyzed everything," Malfoy gritted and tugged at the strands atop Harry's head. Harry moved from Malfoy's jaw to his collar and licked at the dip between his clavicles. "That was _torture _out there."

Harry smirked and fell to his knees, his eyes meeting deep, onyx pools and maintaining that contact as his tongue traced Malfoy's navel and dove inside. "I better make it up to you."

Already set on his decision, Harry undid Malfoy's clean, paint-free trousers and freed his weeping erection from its confines. Buying time for another bout of courage, Harry nuzzled the curls at the base of the former Slytherin's cock and breathed in a scent he assumed would be terribly offensive.

It was anything but. It was pleasant, even. Pleasant enough to swipe an experimental lick from curl to slit, earning a shuddered mewl from the man above him. Fingers raked over his scalp as Harry sucked the tip of Malfoy's head into his mouth and hummed.

"_Harry,_" Malfoy moaned and thrust absently into Harry's very willing cavern. Soon, they developed a pace that wouldn't suffocate the Chosen One as the blond fucked Harry's mouth in controlled abandon. "_Harry, Harry, Harry._"

The former Gryffindor rather enjoyed his name laden with lust and falling helplessly from Mal-_Draco's _abused lips. He hadn't long to revel, though, as Draco tumbled over the brink and came with a flood Harry was all too willing to accept.

Catching all that he could, the Chosen One swallowed and cleaned Draco's remnants with an expert's care. Perhaps too much care. Draco groaned and pulled the kneeling man upwards into a lazy kiss of post coital tenderness.

"You're quite good at that," the blond praised dazedly. Harry bent again to the floor and redressed Draco, feeling utterly silly and domestic. He was certain his smile was loopy and uncalled for, but this spent Draco was adorable and begged to be coddled and pet and worshipped and loved and-

_What?_

A knock sounded at the door and the men hurriedly made for the exit together. Revealing themselves, Harry immediately decided they should have left separately as they were welcomed with jaws scattered across the floor.

"Harry," Draco whispered beside him. "You're covered in paint."

The former Gryffindor glanced at his clothes and hands- imagining the picture they made and howling in laughter.

"So I am!"

Draco's face contorted in obvious confusion and a touch of uncomfortable fear. Refusing to allow that look to linger, Harry took the man's hand in his own and intertwined their fingers.

"Want to come paint the rest of me?"

A patented Malfoy smirk graced his request and his stomach lurched at the feel of Apparating.

He really should remember to thank Pansy for her hard work.

And Draco. For this lesson in savagery.

* * *

_Author's Note:_

_Guys, I'm sorry. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore._

_Thanks for reading._


End file.
